How to cook a week's worth of dinner for less than $4 a meal

Rhian Allan saves time by prepping her meals in advance. Photo / Instagram

A thrifty mother has revealed how you can cook enough meals to feed a family of four for less than £2 ($3.87) a serving over five days.

Entrepreneur Rhian Allan, who was raised in Wales but now lives in Sydney, says she manages to slash her grocery bills by buying own-brand products and by meal prepping all her dishes in advance, the Daily Mail reported.

The mother-of-two, who is the founder of hugely popular weight loss programme The Healthy Mummy which has just launched in the UK for the first time, has now shared her meal plan for five nights' worth of dinners.

They cost just £36 ($69.71) for 25 meals, or £1.80 ($3.49) per person per night.

Rhian, whose business is worth $20 million ($21.7m) and has helped hundreds of thousands of Australian women lose weight, says she wants to show busy mothers how healthy eating doesn't have to be expensive.

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No joke - these jalepeno poppers from the July #28daychallenge are the bomb!! I cannot explain how tasty they were and you are in for a big treat this July!! #jalepenopoppers #jalepeño #dinnerrecipes #omg#healthymummy #thehealthymummy #food #healthyeating #healthyweightloss #healthyrecipes #28daychallenge #thebomb #july #food #musttry

A post shared by The Healthy Mummy (@thehealthymummy) on Jun 14, 2018 at 3:02am PDT

She said she cooked her week's meals in advance, which took her three hours in total on one Sunday night.

She made enough dinners to feed a family of four over five nights, as well as three extra portions.

She managed to spend just £36 ($69.71) on the ingredients, and bought everything from UK supermarket Tesco.

Her ethos is that no dietary group is cut out or restricted but all meals are nutritious and healthy.

Every recipe she made is taken from her 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge, which she has created more than 4000 recipes for.

She said: "This took me three hours to do which means I don't have to cook again for the week.

"Because I'm cooking in bulk, I'm saving so much money – so although it is hard work – it is 100 per cent worth it!"

The meals vary in cost per serving per person but her cheapest meal - a courgette and cheese strata (aka a savoury bread pudding) - costs just 72p ($1.39) per person.

Rhian added: "The meals are designed with a holistic approach, with no food group being cut out, everything in moderation and most importantly, they're delicious."

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I love a challenge! And July is our bulk cooking 28 day challenge so I thought - “I can do that”. So today I took 7 base/normal recipes and turned them into 107 meals!! Now I am exhausted- but I have a lot of food!! I will do the blog on it next week as this weekend I need a rest ;) #bulkcooking #mealprep #healthyweightloss #28daychallenge #healthyeating #healthyrecipes #food #healthymummy #healthyeating #thehealthymummy #busymum #testing #tired #busy #weekend

A post shared by The Healthy Mummy (@thehealthymummy) on Jun 15, 2018 at 12:42am PDT